Sunday, August 09, 2015

Hate-filled do-gooders

Twitter and other social media outlets seem to have a disinhibiting effect on what people say. Writers there reveal sides of themselves that we would not normally see. The comment from Australia below is therefore interesting for showing how often do-gooders reveal on social media that they are also great haters who lash out in all directions. Their belief in their own righteousness seems to unshackel them from all tolerance and decency -- and replace that with a frighteninmg savagery.

What we are seeing there, of course, is Leftism in the wild, Leftism red in tooth and claw, Leftism with the gloves off, Leftism with the mask off. Leftists too are great do-gooders. Do-gooding is their stock in trade. Presenting themselves as "compassionate" is what they do.

And in power they too are great haters and destroyers. Mrs Obama liked nothing about America until her husband became president. And Obama's pastor ranted about "AmeriKKKa". Obama himself is too wily to let his hatred be seen -- though we can readily infer it. In countries where their power and influence can cease at the next election, Leftists in a democracy have to be cautious like that.

But where they have untrammelled power we see what Leftists really are. It took the loudly do-gooding Leftist Hugo Chavez to reduce oil-rich Venezuela to poverty -- where no amount of money can buy many basics, such as toilet paper, and where most cars have to be bought secondhand at exorbitant prices. And forget freedom of the press in Venezuela of course. The more influence Leftism has, the more its hates are impoverishing and destructive.

And that regime most beloved of America's Left, Cuba, is another case in point. Under Fulgencio Batista, Cuba was a middle-income country, on a par with Belgium. Now, of course it is a poor country, with the basics strictly rationed and in short supply. And Castro himself lives more opulently than Batista ever did.

I grew up in a region of Australia that produces large amounts of sugar for export. There were three sugar mills in the town where I was born. And Cuba too was once a big sugar exporter. So when Fidel Castro took over and was so destructive in his hates as to reduce Cuban sugar production to a trickle, there were many people in my town who had a kind word for him. By noticeably reducing the world supply of sugar, he bumped up prices for it. A lot of Australian sugar farmers were able to pay off their debts at that time.

So the association between do-gooding and aggressive hate has long been with us. It has always been visible on the political scene for anyone with eyes to see. Only now has it become so visible on the individual level. We will see more of it

WHAT is it about goodwill that makes people go feral? “Give, but give until it hurts,” the always well-meaning Mother Teresa taught us. But in a couple of perplexing examples just this week, that touching sentiment seems to have been somehow misinterpreted as: “Give ... until you’re inspired to hurt someone”.

Just this week, a do-gooding current affairs program inspired thousands of Australians to reach out to a suffering family, but also — probably unwittingly — inspired a bit of corporate hate.

Sharon Chan’s ordeal is tragic. The story of the pregnant Sydney mum — whose husband died suddenly of a heart attack last week, leaving her to raise two sons, one with Down syndrome and leukaemia, and another child due any day — touched so many viewers that the Rotary page set up to take donations for the family repeatedly crashed.

But the charity site wasn’t the only online victim of this injustice. Well-meaning Australians, filled with rage at Ms Chan’s situation, took to the Facebook pages of major supermarkets and other television shows as, it seemed, they felt the need to direct their frustration towards The Man.

“Give to Sharon and her boys from the ACA current affair program,” one post to Coles’ Facebook page read. “Give free groceries for her and her boys ... petrol, money, something ... show people you are not a heartless company out for profits.”

And there were others demanding the corporate giant mirror their goodwill. "Everyone in Australia is on board and you should be too. Show people you are not just about profit ... deliver free groceries for a year, or give free petrol ... you decide.”

Conservationists, also with good intentions, have been pushed to the point of being abusive this week. Glamorous American game hunter Sabrina Corgatelli was accused of rubbing salt in the wound as animal lovers reeled from the killing of Cecil the lion.

Their protests at her posing with a dead giraffe and sharing the image online were valid — some people don’t want to see innocent and protected animals hunted for sport.

But how does Photoshopping the woman’s head onto the slain animal’s lifeless body help the cause? And then there were the shocking death threats over her proposed visit to New Zealand: “We should all book on these (hunting tours) and then when we go don’t hunt the animal hunt the **** Sabrina!!!”, “We’ll have a hunting party ready and waiting for YOU. Evil b****”, and “I will personally cut your head off and mount the **** on my wall”.

The logic here appears to be that threatening to hunt and murder a woman, and make a trophy of her genitalia, makes up for the hunting of a giraffe.